Carpe Noctem
by Amariel Rowan
Summary: A story involving Erik and Christine in modern times...as vampires. Based on Leroux and Susan Kay novels, not a lot of fluff. Will be EC but goes quite slow. Please R&R!
1. Chapter One

**Fondest greetings to you all,**

**A few notes before the story begins:**

**First of all, thanks to those who reviewed my first story-it encouraged me to start writing this! It includes "Portrait of a Modern Christine", but it has been modified/edited, so please, if you've read it before, don't skip it! **

**This story follows Leroux's tale, but gives Erik the background Kay worked out for him for the time being (and no, Christine is NOT the cowering child of Kay's novel, blech!). There may be some stuff that uses a tiny bit of ALW's play, but I'm trying to avoid that as much as possible. The timing, as well, is taken from Kay's novel (i.e. the events chronicled in Leroux's novel took place in early 1881). The story begins in 2001 purely to keep numbers even, and I include the prologue as part of the first chapter to keep things easier to keep track of for me.**

**I give it a rating of M for later chapters…this is going to be potentially a rather long novel so please don't be disappointed by the lack of anything going on- I have to set up the background and it's rather complicated.**

**And finally, instead of sticking the prerequisite disclaimer at the beginning of each chapter, I'm just going to give a blanket disclaimer, so…**

**DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own Phantom. The only thing I own is this story and any original characters in it.**

**And now…**

_**Seal my fate tonight,**_

_**I hate to cut the fun short but the jokes wearing thin,**_

_**Let my readers in,**_

_**Let the story begin!**_

**Carpe Noctem**

_**Prologue-April, 2001**_

Most nights at the Paris Opera during the annual Bal Masque were no different from year to year. Flowing dancers, flouncing singers, paint spattered artists, and pompous managers all swirled about the Opera floor in a confused menagerie of color, costume, and mask, rubbing their ever so common elbows with France's most titled blood, the only party in France were sons and daughters of common street musicians and singers could dance with societies glittering bluebloods by virtue of a beautiful voice and talented feet. And so it seemed the panorama of masks would never glide to a stop, the musicians would not cease until the wine ran out. Except for this night.

This night, the crowd stopped for someone as they only had once before, over a century before.

She was not statuesque, not by any means, but her lack of height was made up by her presence, the odd feeling of frozen air and dignified melancholy that overlaid the room as she entered. She walked with casual, assertive grace and lightly clicking heels, locking piercing blue eyes on every pair that dared to meet hers as she climbed the darkened steps of the Grand Staircase, her gaze vaguely, innocently feral, causing the former inhabitants of the steps to shrink back from her instinctively, clinging to the stone handrails or, in some cases, to each other. The room's merry buzz of conversation and laughter quickly quieted to a slight, fearful murmur echoing in the sudden silence of the room.

Her ascent was slow, one ghostly pale hand holding the hem of her deep maroon dress above the tips of her shoes, the ends of her black velvet frock coat gently trailing on the stairs behind her, long curled hair pinned up in loose coils. She did not look down, stepping up as if it were a climb she'd made a dozen times before, her colorless face staring straight ahead, black-masked gaze riveted on the portrait that now decorated the top landing.

It was old, that portrait, painted in the opera's heyday by Degas himself. The figure was of a young woman, decked in white, the heavy canvas held in place by a gold gilded frame. A small plaque to the bottom gave its name: Christine.

Guests were later to say that the picture had swung out and away from the wall of its own accord, opening like a door on hidden hinges at the slight touch of the masked woman that stood before it. Some fleetingly recall hearing the faint echo of a scream.

She approached the painted as if treading on broken glass, reaching gently up to remove a small cord strung with a heavy gate key, a plain gold ring, and a rather unrecognizable object hanging on the wall behind the painting itself. Breaking the cord, she put the gold ring on her left ring finger with aching slowness, sliding the other two objects into a hidden coat pocket as the portrait swung on creaking hinges to resume its normal position on the wall.

The woman stared for several moments at the painting, moving her lips in the ghost of an old song. None present could remember the tune when questioned later, but a few overheard the whispered words: _Fate links thee to me forever._ All remembered the shock of her face as she removed her mask.

Though hard pressed to find any guest who would speak of what they'd seen that night, one young man standing on a small balcony in the main room recounted that her face had been that of the woman in the portrait.

**Chapter One**

**Journal of Christine Daaé-April 2001 **

**(Found by a worker in a collection of papers in the attics of the Paris Opera House)**

One hundred and twenty years…The nights pass without number now, the endless eternity of waking, stalking…feasting mercilessly on human flesh-on human _blood_-before sleeping once again as day rises to burn mist off the skyscrapers of Paris.

_My God, what has he done to me?_

My dress lays now in a pool of silk and satin on my ill-made bed, the black mask forgotten on the coverlet. The thick robe I belted around me upon my return has failed in warming perpetually cold skin. Paris itself shivers in chilled night beneath my bare feet.

Paris is no colder than the body of the man lying at my feet on the floor this night, his blood staining my lips crimson.

_My God, what has he done to me?_

I came to the masque this night in the hope that I was wrong-only to find the horror of the truth, shockingly displayed in a mounted painting amidst a sea of masks and the liquid sound of French on every mortal tongue, a sound I had missed for so long now twisted by the terror it worshipped. And for all my fighting against it, for all my flight from that swollen edifice with _his_ ring searing my finger, struggling against every memory my preternatural mind tried desperately to forget, I could only pray to a God I knew would never hear me.

_Please, God, not this pain again…_

It was with a great deal of trepidation that I returned to Paris.

I had spent many years in what the old ones of our kind still referred to as the New World, though the North American continent was hardly new to anyone but scientists and historians. The events at the Opera House had driven Raoul and I to abandon Europe altogether, and I myself had no desire to travel any further east then the boundaries of Russia.

Thinking back, I suppose I had no real desire to do anything at all.

Raoul was concerned for me, of course, as my skin paled and my appetite waned, but visits to several doctors on the road to the Spanish coast only confirmed to him that with rest and time my health would be restored and he would have back the Christine he loved and remembered from before…

No, I will not remember that yet.

In Spain we boarded a ship for America, and I was disheartened to find that even here the story of my triumph at the Opera House was known, as the captain of the vessel insisted upon giving "the great prima donna" a more lavish suite than Raoul's hastily acquired funds would have bought us. We were travel worn, weary, and although the unpleasant reminder of Paris would normally have brought Raoul into a rage and myself to tears, we were of no disposition to argue. I kept Raoul's arm fiercely clutched in my own as the jovial captain escorted us and our ragged assortment of baggage to our suite, and I know that by the end of that strained march he was the only thing that supported my weight. He lifted me into his arms as soon as the door closed upon the captain's concerned face and lay me down on the bed that took up almost three quarters of the room, whispering anxiously that he would have some tea brought up from the galley. I felt him pull the heavy comforter over me and I remember nothing until waking up the following day at sea, violently ill.

For three days I did nothing but sleep, waking only to retch into the chamber pot before collapsing back into tormented dreams, Raoul keeping vigil silently at my bedside, drinking coffee to keep himself awake until lack of sleep drove him to curl beside me on top of the sheets.

I woke with pain on the fourth night, having bitten through my own tongue.

Dragging myself from the bed was torture, my limbs cramped from lying still for so long, and my legs collapsed beneath me. My mouth filled steadily with my own blood as I rose painfully to my knees, crawling across the floor to the powder room of the suite. I attempted to raise myself to stand by gripping with claw-like fingers to any hold on the wall I could find, my sharp nails finding no purchase, before finally bracing myself on the short armoire that filled half the room, my legs trembling and unsteady. The mirror above the washbasin showed me the countenance of one near death, and for a moment I had convinced myself that I was dreaming once again. The stark white, hollow eyed face that stared back could not have been mine.

Grimacing at my face in the mirror, I swallowed my own blood.

The world reeled, my eyes clouding with a red haze as I lost my handholds and fell once again to the floor, the warmth of the blood that I'd swallowed traveling through my chest and down to settle in between my legs. My hand traveled with it, momentarily, and unbidden my legs opened. _My God, I wanted it again…_

Raoul's worried shout of my name echoed through the room, and I once again attempted to summon sufficient strength to stand before he threw the door open and came round the corner, picking me up from the cold floor and settling me once more on the bedsheets. He carefully wiped the sweat from my face with a cool cloth, and stood to pace the room as I drifted off into sleep.

My last thought was only that I could never tell him what I had become.


	2. Chapter Two

**Sorry this chapter is so short, I've been rather ill lately and haven't been exactly in the mood for writing, but here goes.  
**

**Chapter Two**

We arrived in New York after a week at sea.

Raoul and I disembarked in a whirlwind of half packed trunks and hastily donned cloaks, and I was still so weak he carried me down the gangplank lying near to senseless in his arms. I only felt myself lifted into the waiting carriage before slipping into a sun-induced haze, listening vaguely to Raoul tell the driver the name of our hotel in accent laden English through a throbbing pall of pain.

The sun! It burned with the intensity of a million fires that day, searing my eyes and skin, reflecting off building windows and the silver harness of the horses, torching everything it touched. I felt the carriage shake as Raoul climbed in and I turned my head towards him, my tongue as sluggish as a load of wet cotton in my mouth. I forced it to form words.

"Raoul, please, the windows…cover the windows…it's too bright…oh, God, please…"

My words disintegrated into meaningless murmurs as I gestured my hand limply at the carriage windows, pleading wordlessly for him to cover them. It was so bright…it hurt so badly…cover them…

His brow furrowed as he let down the leather window shades. "Christine, I don't understand. The clouds are dark…it's beginning to rain. Why is it so bright for you, Lotte?"

I closed my eyes and prayed he would not see as he covered the windows and sat back to pull my head against his shoulder that I had begun to cry.

We stayed at the hotel for only a few days before Raoul arranged to purchase a small home on Fifth Avenue. I was improved, but barely able to make an appearance in the dining room during the day before walking slowly back to my small study and collapsing into an armchair, sighing in relief at the black draped windows. I remained pale, and although I convinced Raoul otherwise, I no longer ate.

I could not think. I only wanted to forget… But my mind would not let me. Paris haunted my thoughts, worse than a legion of ghosts and demons. I saw the Opera House whenever I closed my eyes, and woke screaming each morning, Raoul's arms about my shoulders, shaking me awake from nightmares in which water lapped at the prow of a boat, and words uttered only in song echoed through underground tunnels. I would sit in the study for hours, the windows open behind pitch black curtains, reveling in the sound of carriages blocking the sound of the incessant lapping of dank water that never left my mind.

We stayed in our home, hardly leaving, and as the time passed I gradually slept later and woke later, until Raoul finally hired a personal maid for me who was willing to work at night. We made no debut into society, and although the news that the Vicomte de Chagny and his fiancée had arrived in America had reached most of New York's high society, we accepted no visitors and soon the story of the circumstances of our hasty arrival had reached the ears of the gossips and spread through most society circles. I did not care, and though I received a vague impression that Raoul did, he made no mention of it.

We stayed for six years.


	3. Chapter Three

Author's Note: This is meant to be an adult chapter, but the love scene is not as detailed as one would usually find- I'm not going for a lot of fluff. It is purposely meant to be vague, for literary reasons, as will be found in later chapters.

**Carpe Noctem-Chapter Three**

For six years, I never tasted blood again. But as my health continually worsened and my daily pain increased to the point of being unbearable, I could not, for all my trying, erase the thoughts of it from my mind.

We lived in a celibate marriage, Raoul and I, something hardly unusual for 1887, when parents still arranged marriages for their children and matches were made based on the size of one's fortune, even in America. It was unusual, however, for two people who were in love. And in love we were.

That Raoul met with other women I had no doubt, but he took pains to be sure I never knew of it for a certainty, and whether or not he did, I merely gave tacit if silent consent by never asking. I loved him too much to deny him the physical release in another woman's arms that I in my ill health could not give him in mine. And for all that I wondered why he never gave up his "virgin wife" for another, it was something I could never bring myself to ask him. To this day I believe that if I had, the pain of digging up the past would have emotionally destroyed him.

But after six years for wondering, I found that I could no longer refuse him that which was due him by marriage…and love.

Even after six years of marriage, we were unfamiliar with each other's nudity, and he approached me with all the shyness of a schoolboy, holding me with my back to him as if I were porcelain or glass, running his fingers lightly down my shoulders, trailing gently over my breasts, making the nipples erect with cold and arousal. I laid my head back on his shoulder as he picked me up and carried me to the bed we shared. He shifted as he balanced himself above me and suddenly I was awash in his scent…and something unfamiliar and warm.

_Oh, my God…his blood…_

I smelled it mixed with his cologne and sweat, heard it as it throbbed in the veins in his neck, in his wrists, through his heart. I felt my mouth open even as my hips rose to meet his, and knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

But I could not stop.

I felt no pain as he entered me, nor did I hear his cry as my teeth broke the skin of his neck, as he blood flowed over my tongue. I did not feel his thrusts slow and finally stop.

There was only the blood.

I held tight to his slack shoulders with my hands, tasting the brandy in his blood, the memories of countless liaisons that flowed with it, burying myself in the slowing pulse of his neck, and finally drifting into a space occupied only by the endless red of the fount at my lips.

I woke with him beside me, reveling in the seemingly miraculous cessation of the pain that had plagued me for so long. I turned to kiss him awake, my mouth still crimson.

He was dead.


	4. Chapter Four

**Authors Note: Ok, this chapter is a little longer. My apologies if Christine seems a little…cold, but that is part of my character development. I promise, more questions will be answered in the next few chapters, and a couple are answered in this one. And I PROMISE that Erik is going to show up soon.**

**Also, my thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys keep me writing!**

**Lastly, the stuff in italics, in case you all haven't figured that out yet, is going on in Christine's mind.**

**Chapter Four**

I heard a slight sound in the direction of the door-my maid was there, backed up against the doorframe, her palm pressed to her mouth, stifling a scream. She could not be allowed to wake the house…they would all find us here…and Raoul's body was already growing cold. I could not pretend he had died of natural causes-the blood on the bedclothes and on my lips gave that lie away.

I clutched the sheet to my chest, and took the one route left open to me…

I made her afraid for her life.

"Come here, Marie." I said, beckoning with my hand. She shook her head no, violently, pressing further against the frame. _I'm sorry for what I must do now, Marie…_

"COME HERE!"

I knew she read the warning in my tone, the threat that hovered just underneath the surface of my raised voice. She heard it, but she could not believe it came from her calm and sedate mistress.

I think it was her second glance at Raoul's body that made her move reluctantly towards me.

"Look at me, Marie."

She drew her eyes from the floor up to mine, fear making the pupils wide and draining all color from her face.

"You are…aware of what has happened to him?" I gestured at the body on the bed.

She nodded, swallowing deeply.

"And therefore you are aware of…what I am?"

As she nodded once again I saw her thoughts in the expression on her face. _My God…she thinks she's going to die…oh, Marie, would that I did not have to do what I must do now…_

I flung the bedclothes aside, standing naked and grasping the sides of her head with my hands. She fought against my grip-I held her still with a strength I did not know I possessed.

"Then you know," I hissed into her ear," that if you tell anyone-ANYONE- what has happened here, you will end up the same as him?" I allowed a gleam to come into my eyes that I did not feel.

She whimpered an assent, and I released her, pushing her to the side as I made my way to the closet to don a dressing gown.

"Madame…" she whispered. "What shall I do with…him?" She spared a glance at the bed.

I gave her only one instruction before going out into the corridor where she could not see my tears.

"Get rid of him."

* * *

Even now I wish I could have been other than I was. But I could think of no other way. 

_My God, what has he done to me?_

I had killed my husband. I had killed Raoul. And with that fact, I had to learn to live.

But learning to live did not mean hating myself –or hating _him_- any less.

The funeral was two days later, Marie having found a doctor willing enough to write Raoul's cause of death as the failing of a weak heart. Privately I wondered how much money it had taken to make that doctor so willing.

Before the funeral I had cloistered myself in my study, avoiding human contact if only to spare the servants the outpouring of my grief-and their lives. I sat staring out the window of two days and nights, hardly moving.

And the neverending lapping of water resonated in my ears.

_The water gently ate at the prow of the boat, lapping and licking at it as if it would swallow it whole. I clung desperately to the side as Nadir slowly punted it across the wide lake, giving me a gentle, half-hearted smile as the bottom hit the shore._

_The destruction in the house on the lake was rampant, black candles lying in hardened pools of their own wax, endless sheets of music ripped to shreds more resembling confetti than musical scores. The pipe organ was twisted and smashed, the carpet ripped, the furniture torn and half-burned._

_I turned to Nadir, tears beginning to form in my eyes. "Erik did this?"_

"_Yes." His voice was void of any emotion._

_I felt a single tear slide down my cheek-no more. I would not allow myself to cry anymore in front of this man who had witnessed so much. I closed my eyes against my tears._

"_Stand as my witness before God, Nadir," I whispered, sliding a simple gold band onto the ring finger of my left hand, my face held expressionless, betraying none of the loss I felt- the self hatred._

"_Go to him," he said simply, taking my hand, pity and sadness creeping their way into his eyes. His right hand gestured, guiding my eyes to the only closed door in the room._

I shut my eyes against the memory. _I will not remember him now…Raoul is dead…I killed him…and yet I remember ERIK!_ I grasped the lamp that stood on my desk and flung it against the wall, taking pleasure in hearing the shattering of the glass. Cursing at myself, I sat down at my desk and began to think.

I had to find a teacher.

I would not let this happen again.


	5. Chapter Five

**Authors Note: Sorry to everyone for not updating sooner-I'm posting this as I go along and sometimes the muse leaves me-you know how it goes. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!**

**In case anyone's wondering this flashback takes place when Christine returns to the house on the lake, after she leaves with Raoul and before they are married. Everyone that's read Kay should recognize it. By the way...I know, I know, the whole rose and ribbon thing is from ALW's movie, but it fit so well I couldn't help using it.  
**

**Chapter Five**

_I opened the door to find Erik prone on the bed, his breathing shallow, his hands convulsing as the clutched his chest, wadding the black satin of his clothes. He did not wear his mask, and I for my part did not notice beyond a dull mental acknowledgement of its absence._

_He had lost his power to frighten me now._

_Approaching the bed, I laid the small hat and veil aside that I had worn to the Opera House, and it was only then that he noticed my presence._

_"Christine…?"_

_I could no longer hold back the tears that had been threatening to spill at the sound of his voice, lost, broken, and utterly hopeless. My feet carried me at nearly a run to his side. I could not leave him…I could not let him die without knowing I was there with him, of my own free will, at last._

_I smoothed a palm over his face, and he jerked at my touch on his skin, flinching and recoiling. "No, don't touch me..."_

_"Erik…I'm here."_

_His eyes focused on me at last, his mind swimming up from his pain to grasp that I was truly standing there, touching him-I'd not run screaming, I'd come back. One emotion after another flickered across his features, finally settling on a look of frank cynicism, twisting his malformed lips into a horrible grimace. "Come to make sure it's finished then, my dear?"_

_I opened my mouth for a biting retort when I saw the pain behind his eyes, how his hands shook with keeping it at bay. I could not bring myself to hurt him further now. Instead I sat down by his side and allowed by hands to slide gently over his chest, resting on the sides of his face._

_"No, I haven't."_

_I saw shock and surprise vibrate across his face as I leaned down and covered his lips with mine._

_

* * *

_  
"Madame?"

Marie's voice finally penetrated the thick overlay of memory running rampant through my mind, relegating Erik to the recesses of my memory.

I knew he would not stay there for long.

"What is it, Marie?" I could not help my defeated sigh. _Damn him._

"I heard a crash…" she gestured at the shattered remnants of the lamp lying next to the wall, timidly raising an eyebrow at the mess.

I gave a short bark of sour laughter at her show of concern. "Leave it," I said tersely, turning back to the desk.

"Yes, Madame." I heard her shuffle to leave, but stopped her with a curt "wait."

"Make sure you leave clothing laid out for me." I could not very well go out in my corset and shift.

"You are leaving, Madame?" _That was brave of her_.

I turned slightly towards her. "I walk the city tonight."

* * *

I did not return home for three days and nights. 

Marie must have been frantic-_or relieved_, a malicious voice whispered in my ear-but I simply walked, renting small hotel rooms for the day before resuming my travels at night.

I walked, and I listened.

I had learned long ago that I could hear the thoughts of others, ghosts of images flitting across my mind that threatened to drown me if I did not exercise my conscious will to block them. Three years ago the first unwanted image had flickered across my mind, a transient thought that opened the floodgates for more to enter. I had at first thought it was madness, resigned to the fact that I would soon join those I had once scorned in the mental ward of a hospital. Gradually I came to realize what it was, but those three nights spent walking made up the first time I had ever consciously used my ability.

I walked, and I listened for one word alone.

_Vampire…

* * *

_I heard it on the third and final night.

It was weak, soft and languorous as it drifted through my mind. And I latched onto it, concentrating on it until it pulsed in my mind, a beacon towards the one whose mind whispered to my own.

I followed it through a small section of warehouses until it stopped at one long abandoned, boarded up. Stupidly using my full strength to pull at the boards covering the door, I tipped and fill onto the ground backwards as it gave way as easily as though it were only cobwebs that held it to the frame.

A stream of colourful curse words learned from long years at the opera flew from my mouth, interrupted by a sardonic chuckle that made me get to my feet instantaneously, levering the board in front of me as a weapon.

"You are young, aren't you?"

The voice was unfamiliar, but the mind I recognized.

___Vampire…_

"Yes, I am," he said, obviously reading my thoughts, "and I gather you are as well, though rather untrained I imagine. Your mind was broadcasting so loudly I was nearly obliged to use earplugs."

A shadow detached itself from a wall nearby and stepped into the dim light.

He could have been Raoul's twin.

Dark blonde haired, green-eyed, with a cleft chin and a_ –__God help me_- purely aristocratic air, they could have been brothers._ Dear God_… I covered my mouth with my hands. He raised one eyebrow. "My name is Lucas. I daresay it would be of benefit to both of us if you told me yours."

"Ch-Christine." My mouth was cotton underneath the muffle of my hands.

He steepled his fingers in a gesture so purely Raoul I had to blink to clear away tears "Well, Christine, you are clearly in need of a teacher. And it so happens…" he bowed with a flourish, "you have found one."

* * *

We agreed to meet at my home the following night. I began to walk slowly home, my arms wrapped about me protectively I did not see the small hansom cab until it had pulled up to the curb beside me, so lost was I in my thoughts. 

"Ma'am? Ma'am?" The driver barked.

I looked up, then away again as I realized who it was. "I have no money to pay you, monsieur. You are wasting your time."

"No need, Ma'am," he said, tipping his hat at me. "The gentleman paid for you. Told me to take you home."

Smiling faintly and somewhat indulgently as Lucas audacity, I simply nodded my head and opened the door to get in, refusing the drivers offer of assistance. And nearly screamed.

In the torn leather seat lay a red rose tied with a length of black ribbon.


	6. Chapter Six

**Author's Note: My thanks to all who reviewed!**

**To Padme Nijiri- Yes, Anne Rice is one of my influences, but I'm not trying to copy her, just to emulate her style a bit. Don't worry...you'll notice changes later on. **_**  
**_

__

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_**Carpe Noctem Chapter Six**_

I do not know how long I stare at the seat, my eyes wide and filmed over for lack of blinking. It could have been days, and I would not have cared.

"Ma'am? Ma'am!" The driver's frantic voice once again sank into my thoughts with all the gentleness of a pistol crack, and it dimly registered that my hand was clenched into a fist.

"Who hired you?" My voice was raw, and I saw his hesitation. "WHO HIRED YOU?" My hand snaked out of it's own accord to grab hold of the riding whip and wrench it out of its holster, raising it high to lash across him. I saw the fear in his eyes at the ferocity I knew was in mine.

"He ordered me not to tell you—he _threatened_ me, Ma'am—"

The hand with the whip dropped. I could not strike him. Perhaps I had never intended to. "His face was covered?" I asked with a sort of resignation.

"Aye, ma'am. With a mask." His relief was palpable.

The whip clattered to the ground. I could not remember having grabbed it, then. "I'm sorry," I choked out, tears once again filling my eyes. _Damn him…_

The driver's lined face had lost its fear at my words and my tears, and I was once again an alone, abandoned girl, barely one and twenty, ill dressed for the weather and all the colder for it. So human, that compassion of his…

"Well, ma'am," he said, motioning towards the door with a saddened smile. "I _have _already been paid…"

* * *

_I pulled gently from the kiss, feeling Erik's hands on my back, grabbing at the cloth of my dress in disbelief at the reality of what I had done. I feared almost to hurt him, as ridiculous as that seemed. "Christine?" Erik's voice was tentative, the voice of a small boy being given an unparalleled gift, his caustic cynicism near forgotten, it seemed._

_I held up my left hand slowly, and I watch his eyes as they shifted to rest on the gold band on my finger._

_His ring…Erik's ring._

_His reaction was so blurred, so swift I could not remember for days afterward how I ended up with my back pressed to the wall, my hair twisted in his skeletal fingers as he held my throat pinned in an iron grip._

"_DO NOT MOCK ME! Do you honestly expect me to believe you'd leave him for a lifetime with Death, Christine? Or perhaps you've just conveniently forgotten the words you said to that damn boy?" he raged, his body quivering with pain and fury, lunging me away from the wall and onto the floor, leaving me out of breath and gasping painfully the only words I'd never said to him._

"_I…love…you…"_

_He flinched as if I'd struck him across the face, stopping abruptly his deadly destruction of the room around us. The whispered response was barely audible, a tight, raw sound. "What did you say?"_

_I stood shakily, gradually, squaring my shoulders, determined to look him in the eyes as I admitted to emotions I could no longer ignore. "I love you."_

_His body sagged in its covering of black satin; he turned his back to me so I could not see his face. I remained as I was, fully expecting another outburst of incoherent rage, when oddly enough he began to shake with what I at first thought was physical pain. Until I heard a distinct sob._

_My God, he was crying…_

_He was unresisting as I turned him to face me by his shoulders, holding his face between my hands and bringing his forehead to meet mine, tasting the familiar salt of his tears._

"_Take me…" I whispered, repeating my words of only days ago. "Teach me…"_

_This time the words would not be enough._

_Erik's hands were shaking, and he made no move towards me as I released him to take a few steps away, presenting my back to him. I unbuttoned my gown with quaking fingers, steadily undressing until I turned to stand completely naked in front of him. I was unsure of what his reaction would be, and frightened. I had no knowledge of this._

_His face reflected his desire, yes, but nervousness as well, a lack of knowledge and experience that clearly sparked a tight anger in him at himself for his naiveté. _

_Perhaps we would both be taught this night._

_I moved towards him until there was only a thin space between us and picked up his hand, gently placing it on the sensitive flesh of my breast and covering his fingers with my own._

"_I am your _wife_, Erik," I said simply as he hesitantly moved his thumb across my nipple. "If you want to know me… learn."_

_At first he merely stroked me, running his fingertips lightly everywhere—across my nipples and the undersides of my breasts, down my arms, my back, my neck and shoulders, the base of my spine, my buttocks—touching me everywhere, studying how I reacted with a mix of timidity and intensity, making me grow heavy lidded with want. He did not allow me to touch him, and after long maddening moments of this I summoned the courage to begin to undress him--he balked at that, nearly pulling away from me, but I spoke then._

"_No, Erik, I want to do this."_

_Whether it was my words or his need for me that stopped him, I don't know, but he stayed still as I divested him of his clothing, letting the black satin pool on the floor as I set about an exploration of my own while his hands continued to roam all over me._

_He was thin, muscular, whipcord strong and cool to the touch in a way that was smooth and inviting to my heated skin rather than repulsive. He buried his face in my hair and drew me closer as I let my fingers trail across his back, feeling raised, gnarled scars beneath my fingertips, crisscrossing his shoulder blades and upper arms and ending at the base of his back. I knew that in my own way I had added to those scars of long ago, and even though I could not erase what I had done, that really was not what I meant to accomplish this night. To try would have been unspeakably selfish. I only wanted to give him peace, and a small measure of the immense love he both wanted to give and lacked for himself._

_Even if it wasn't enough._

_He began to move with greater confidence now, as if he was assured that I would not run from him, resting his hands at newly discovered areas of sensitivity, softly kissing his way down my neck and between my breasts before taking one of my nipples in his mouth, licking and teasing it to a painful stiffness before mimicking his actions on the other, reducing me to such a state of mindlessness I was unaware that I'd pulled him skin to skin with me, without physical space between us._

_I felt his hand on my shoulder then and he spun me about so my back was to him, one of his hands gently fondling my breast as the other left a trail of fire in the wake of his palm, traveling with aching slowness down my belly to settle in the moist folds between my thighs, coiling heat there like a snake. I was only vaguely attentive to his continual kisses down the column of my throat, tasting me there to the point of exquisite pleasure, as captive now as if I were in the heated, mirrored torture chamber._

_I swore I never felt him break the skin…_

_He played me as intensely as he play every instrument I'd ever seen him touch, caressing my folds and drawing slow circles around the small swollen bundle of nerves hidden there with an almost savage kind of torture, holding me against him until I pleaded with him to end it. I could not see his eyes but I knew then that this is what he wanted…he wanted me to suffer his pain, even if it was as pleasure…_

_I felt one finger, then two, enter me as I bent against him, widening my legs and pressing into his hand as he moved his long fingers in and out of me, my knees threatening to buckle. He moved his hand faster, rubbing my tender nub with his thumb until my muscles spasmed around him and waves of dizzying release nearly drowned me._

_I was visibly shaking as I turned to face him once again, frightened now, deadly frightened. He would inflict pain, I knew. He'd make me feel it as he had. It was a miracle in itself I'd felt none already. God only knew I deserved punishment._

Hail Mary, full of Grace…

_I loved him. I loved him and I'd never told him, and even the threat of the end of Raoul's life had not been able to tear the words from my throat._

"What do you want?"

_The foolish question had fallen from my childish lips, borne on the fanciful notion that I could somehow placate the boogeyman and run safely back with Raoul to my castle in the clouds again, and the nightmare would be gone forever._

_But Erik had been the architect of my castle of dreams as well…_

_I expected to look up into eyes blazing with pain and anger, and prepared merely to accept whatever punishment I was to receive. I was his wife before God, and as much as I felt like a prisoner about to be executed, I would not deny him his rights._

"_No, Christine."_

_Erik's voice was low, so low I almost could not hear the words. He opened his mouth to say more, but no words issued from his lips, and he did not try to force them. He simply picked me up and carried me over to the still warm bed, laying me down with a care I did not expect to receive, cradling my head as he smoothly arranged me on the pillows._

Blessed art thou among women…

_Feeling him lay down beside me, I wanted nothing more then to wrap my arms around him and whisper my apologies, however hollow they would seem to him. I could not. I knew his pride would never accept it. Instead I lay there stiffly, not looking into his eyes, not wanting to see the hurt there._

"_You came back." It was an expression of utter disbelief, but the lack of cynicism made me gather the strength look at him._

_I saw only shock, longing, and love in his eyes._

_No answer rose to my mouth, none was possible. He took my love, and accepted it. It was all I could ask._

_I crumpled against him, feeling the need to return the pleasure he'd given me some way, any way I could. His fingers stroked along the surface of my body as mine did along his, traveling lower and lower until I reached his unexplored manhood. I could not resist my curiosity as I set about learning his thick, throbbing length, making him swallow his breath in a low groan. I continued to search him as he had me, running my probing fingers over the soft testicles that hung under the length of him, noting their sensitivity to my touch. I wanted to be taught how a man felt, and he allowed it, holding me to him for long moments as I learned his shape, his texture and heat._

_He arrested my movements by quickly taking hold of my hands and wresting me beneath him, but his touch was still gentle, and I understood from the fervor in his eyes and the hand that softly parted my legs that he could no longer endure teaching me now._

_Settling himself between my thighs, he held me to him, murmuring in my ear. "I do not wish to hurt you."_

_I reached between us to guide him and lifted my hips to place the tip of his manhood against me, tilting my head up and kissing him once again. "I know."_

_I couldn't hold back my cry of pain as he sheathed himself in me, though he stilled himself to allow me time to adjust to him and reached between us to fondle the nub between my legs, the pain outweighed the pleasure of the fondling and for a moment I had to resist the urge to push him away._

_For a long space of time we lay there, unmoving except for slow breaths and the running of his hand along my cheek, wiping away my sudden tears. As the pain faded I began to feel a fullness I wished to investigate, and I began to writhe beneath him, his features lighting at the sensation caused by my movements._

"_Erik," I said. "Please…"_

_He took my mouth with his as he began to rock against me, cautiously at first but with increasing speed until he was drawing himself in a out of me, thrusting with ever increasing intensity. My hips rose to meet his as he plunged again and again, until I felt him with draw almost completely and drive into me with such force I cried out, the waves of my release beginning as he spent himself inside of me, his arms curling around me, twining in my hair as my body shuddered around his own._

_Erik withdrew himself from me with care, then, taking a moment to curl me naked against his chest, my face hidden from his own, my temple resting in the small hollow at the base of his throat, protecting me, claiming me finally for his own._

"_Thank you."_

_The words surprised me more than he knew. I lifted my head to tell him something, anything to break the silence after his words, and heard his swift intake of breath._

_His features had formed into an expression I had never witnessed on his face, more terrifying to me than his anger._

_Horror…_

_My eyes traced the stains of blood on his lips as my fingers closed over my own flesh in dread._

_The blackness clotting the edges of my vision swallowed me as I found the two small circular wounds on the side of my throat._

_

* * *

_

Steady thunder and an unpleasant wetness between my legs drew me from my unwanted reverie. The night had turned into a storm in my ride across the city.

The driver was still kind to me as e assisted me from the hansom—I suppose one can hardly blame a defenseless woman for lashing out.

The rain muffled my sour chuckle at the irony.

The Fifth Avenue house was dark, Marie asleep in her bed. No one was there to watch me light the rose on fire in a lamps dim flame and throw it into the cold hearth in my bedroom. I watched it burn until only smoldering ashes remained.

The angel had been thrown into hell.

I could not forgive what _he_ had done.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Author's Note: My sincere apologies for waiting so long to update- I became ill and then had a horrid case of writers block- fortunately the story is flowing again so updates should be closer together. In the meantime, here we go:****  
**

**Chapter Seven**

Marie's unceremonious scream upon opening the front door the next night informed me in no uncertain terms of Lucas's arrival at the Fifth Avenue house the next night. She escorted him in to my heavily curtained rooms with no color whatsoever in her face, but she did not flinch when he mockingly kissed her hand before she fled the room She did not have to be told what manner of creature she'd left in my suite.

He languorously arranged himself in a chair before the still-cold hearth, casually brushing flecks of snow off his tailored coat and settling a decorative walking cane in the crook of an armrest. I, for my part, could barely stand.

I hungered.

The hunger gnawed at me, ate at my innards, crawled its way up my chest and flooded my mouth with the warm, imagined taste of blood, raping my senses with a blind need for food.

He saw it, and said nothing.

Several minutes ticked by as he merely sat in his chair, passively watching me shiver and clutch at the bedclothes in a wasted attempt to stifle my hunger.

"And there she gazed and sighed deep, and there I shut her wild, wild eyes…"

I wasn't expecting Yeats to come spilling out of his mouth, his voice so achingly familiar, but when it did I forced back an obscenity. "What sort of stupidity is that?"

"Yeats." His eyebrow rose.

"I am…" Struggling, twisted in hot bed sheets, I sat up little by little, folding my knees into my chest in a vain hope of stemming the tide of nausea and hunger that came with physical movement, swallowing the bile in my throat, and began again, my voice frozen, ice cold. "I am familiar with the poetry. Why in God's name are you just sitting there quoting some damn poem?" I was fast losing my sense of propriety, and in truth I no longer cared to act like a lady. The time of being a timid mouse was long past.

He leaned close, his breath smelling curiously of cloves. "This is your first lesson, Christine. What do you want to know?"

"I _want_ to feed." It sounded childish, petulant, and I knew it.

He sighed expansively, adjust the set of his coat and fixing me with the knowing stare one would give a three-year-old, as if he'd dealt with this a thousand times and quite enjoyed watching his students writhe under the agony of hunger. "Knowledge first, little one."

Inwardly, I cursed. He had control over me, and I did not want him to. I did not want someone to dominate me again- I could not let that happen once more.

_Horror, horror, horror…_

I turned to him, my words ash in my mouth. "Then tell me everything."

* * *

I saw nothing more of roses in the remaining months of that year, no indication that Erik watched me, though I believe that somewhere in the back of my fevered mind I knew that he did. Marie watched me nightly as I broke from my internal reveries to make sure the windows were securely fastened and blinded before I slept during the day, and though she gave voice to her bewilderment as to what I could possibly wish to keep out, she did not try to stop me. Her innocent comment was met with my mirthless laughter. "There are creatures in this city worse than I, Marie."

It was during that period of intense paranoia following the appearance of the rose that Lucas proved invaluable to me.

During my six years as Raoul's wife I had no one I could confide in, no one I could share the torture of my increasing pain with, my lust for the very fluid that sustained the lives of those I loved. Lucas was, if only my instructor, at the very least a confidante, a shield against a reality I did not want to accept. For too long I had tried to convince myself that I didn't need someone with me- even my six years with Raoul had felt empty. And as much as I railed against having that kind of leadership again, Lucas insinuated himself into my life so thoroughly that I failed to notice the gradual loss of my independence.

Despite this, he remained distant, treating me with no affection, no tenderness beyond a cool assessment of my needs for survival, encouraging my dependence on his knowledge but always holding me an arms length away. He was a poor substitute, I suppose, for what I craved- a true companion, an equal. But I had, in my weakness, no other choice.

To this day I do not believe Lucas showed me everything. Oh, he taught me well enough, taught me how to shield my mind from other vampires who walked the streets how to disappear and reappear at will; he even taught me what could kill me- beheading, sunlight, staking, all the various forms of dismemberment that ensured that my daylight dreams were nightmares. But he never kept me from killing my victims.

* * *

For six months, I starved. 

For the first few weeks Lucas fed me from his own veins, slashing his wrist and putting it to my lips, letting me drink until he could lose no more with out losing consciousness as well. As I began to require more than he could give, I woke to find victims in my bedroom, lying senseless on the floor-starved, homeless creatures or disease ridden streetwalkers that no one would miss- and would drink my fill, leaving Lucas to dispose of the corpses. And though these sated my hunger-if not my conscience-well enough I knew and my body knew that I was starved for something more than blood.

The idea that I could take anything more-need anything more-than the life of my victims terrified me.

Soon after this new revelation of mine I approached Lucas about it, and to my utter horror he refused to answer me; it was the only question he had ever denied me an answer to in the six months we had known one another: What did I need more than the blood?

I starved for two more weeks for this nameless thing, starved for a cessation of my ache and pestered him like a stubborn child for knowledge he had deemed forbidden to me. More than once I had watched him in the last few hours before sunrise, reading a newspaper, his cravat carelessly tied, dressed down to his shirtsleeves as was his wont after a long night, and catch a glimpse of sadness, almost…pity there, concealed behind his usual façade of emotionless, mocking superiority.

Perhaps it was the pity I feared the most.


	8. Chapter Eight

A/N: Sorry for the length between updates, all- I'm was in the midst of finishing up my VERY LAST SEMESTER of college and the tests were coming in fast and thick. This was intended to be longer, but I couldn't resist the cliffy. But, have no fear, I know where I want the next chapter to go, so the updates will come sooner :D

Another comment- I don't know whether or not "Red Light District" is the proper term for the more seedier area of New York in the late 1800's. If anyone can give me more accurate information in comments, I will gladly change it for the sake of continuity. Until then, "Red Light District" is the best I can come up with.

Also, I now have a beta- GlovedHand from Aria. However, my dear beta has not seen this chapter yet. So…I give you the un-betaed version. I may repost later with the betaed version, but I could NOT resist posting this now that I had it done.

**Chapter Eight**

Those two hellish weeks of meaningless starvation were what finally drove me to slam my front door closed on a surprised-and lightly amused, I noticed angrily- Lucas and storm out into the streets clad heavily in my now usual black velvet. Perhaps it was the fact that I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I could not trust him that I not make me repeat the question of the weeks prior, or it was merely the fact that he controlled my movements that I hated. As it was, I mustered what small amount of preternatural speed and strength I possessed and took the nearest route to the only place I could believe other vampires would be found: New York's infamous Red Light District.

I could well imagine Mama Valerius' voice in my mind as I walked there; she would be quietly appalled that her little, shy singer would even contemplate setting foot in such a dismal place. I chuckled quietly at her stern admonishments in my mind.

_"There, Christine! No, I forbid it. You will never be seen doing such a thing, not if you are to be viewed as a proper young lady. No, dear, you will not go there."_

The small voice of Mama Valerius rang in my head at that last sentence, not with the resonance I knew Mama always tried to have, despite her usual calm nature, but with the trembling of an old woman's dying voice.

I missed her. I missed her guidance. I still do. Mama Valerius had always been the place I could go to be safe, the place where Papa's memory was intact, where I knew where I stood and what was expected of me. When I went to the Opera, that all changed. Raoul tried to be my comfort, tried to be the one I could be assured would support me, but he only confused me more. I did not know how to untie my feelings for him from those of friendship. Perhaps…God, perhaps I never had. In some ways, I suppose marriage to my best friend, my dearest friend, was the best thing for me. But not, conceivably, for him.

I shook my head. Thinking of the dead was little use to me now. The District's red window lights glittered ahead, flickering flames in dirty lanterns. Horse manure littered the streets, mixing with the more foul scents of human urine and feces. The cobblestones were broken and cracked; trash was everywhere, blowing in the cold wind. Whores walked the streets, raising their skirts to passersby both male and female. I looked at my dress, obviously costly. It was unwise to be here alone, but I had no choice.

Setting my sights on the heart of the District, I continued walking, forcing my thoughts onto keeping an eye on the crowds before me. It was eventful here, for such a cold night as it was, tavern owners hawking the quality of their drink, brothel madams displaying their wares by their front doors, flashing legs and bosoms to the passersby. I was hoping I would go unnoticed in the crowds, but that was not to be.

"Madam! Madam! In here, please!" The voice had a lilt of culture that did not belong here, so much so that it was noticeable even to my ears, unused as I was to the rough English of the crowds around me.

It came from the steps of a church.

I balked, swallowing. _I can't, not now, not ever, not after all I had done…All that He could never forgive…_

Was I asking for forgiveness?

I waved him away-_don't come near me!_- and continued down the street, sidestepping the muck that spilled even onto the sidewalks. The priest continued with his entreaties to enter, and I looked with a saddened eye at the snow blowing heavier amidst all the trash. The weather was worsening.

I thought for a moment of attempting to use the speed and flight of which Lucas had spoken to me about, but I couldn't risk using it amidst the crowds still in the streets. As it was I'd never used it to begin with, and unafraid as I was to walk the streets alone, confident in my ability to defend myself, I still feared using an ability I had no training in- some instinct left over from the Opera, perhaps. I had come hoping the weather would make it nearly abandoned here. Earning money to pay for a next meal was apparently more important than the snow here. I had nowhere to go.

I thought…

The suggestion of it stopped me in my tracks, swaying slightly from the force of the wind and the power of the thought. _I couldn't go in there, ever…_

Mama Valerius had stressed the importance of the church, it's precepts, it's…holiness. My step meant death now, unnatural death, _unacceptable death_.

I stared back at the face of the church, so forlorn on the street but as imposing to me as the face of Notre Dame itself. _Raoul, would that you were here now…_ I wanted him there so badly in that moment. Wanted to feel him put his arms around mine and tell me everything was fine, there was no need to fear anything. Pretty fairy tales, those were. I wished with all my heart they had been true.

The church front loomed before me with all the dismal grace of a spectre, and quite suddenly I realized I had turned around and come back to stand in front of its steps. I made no movement forward, standing as if part of the sidewalk, letting the crowds pass around me, some with indifference, some with curses I paid little attention to.

_Could I?_

Remembering the first time I'd ever entered a church was difficult for me, I'd been so young, but I know it was with Papa. I remember the humble little chapel he took me to in Sweden. We didn't know anyone, not even the priest. We traveled so much that knowing anyone was rare, but Papa always insisted we go on Sundays, even if the weather was terrible. He always took his violin, and played hymns on the steps of the churches we went to. Quite often it was enough to earn us a meal and a bed for the night.

The earliest I remember was that one small chapel in Sweden, with a congregation of only 20 or 30, a small village compared to the cities we'd been to. I remember Papa packing up his violin and leading me inside for services to start, and I remember the tall, shabby man that followed us in with his head bowed, the man who sat at the back of the church, never speaking to anyone.

_"Papa, why doesn't that man talk to anyone?"_

_"He doesn't feel he can, Lotte."_

_"Why?"_

_"I don't know. Maybe…maybe he has sinned against God."_

_I glowered. "Then he shouldn't be here, should he?"_

_Papa frowned at me, softly. "No, no, Christine, that's not true at all. Perhaps he has sinned, but God will forgive him. God always sees what we do. He even sees inside us." He knelt in front of me, looking me seriously in the eye. "No matter what we do, the pure at heart are always welcome in His house."_

The pure at heart… 

Was I? Oh, God, was I? Could I ever be welcome again?

My fists clenched so tight together I knew there were half moons of blood where my nails bit into my palms at the memory, healing with the speed I also knew I unnaturally possessed.

Even as I took the first step up to the doorway of the church my mind ran away with me, taking me far away from where I was to a place beyond the dilemma I now suffered. Somewhere in the distance I heard the sound of Papa's violin, playing for our room and board.

_The pure at heart…_

I strained to recognize the music as my feet continued plodding up the steps against the will of everything I believed, and for a moment I saw my Papa, standing on the steps in white shirtsleeves, playing. My feet stopped as I stopped to listen, to recognize, and I wasn't even dimly aware of the babbling of the priest as he came to greet me, his hand outstretched to grasp my sleeve. I wanted to hear this, to hear what my Papa played; it had been so long…_Keep playing, Papa, just a little while longer…_

The slow, mournful sound of the _Resurrection of Lazarus_ greeted my ears.

And the pavement rushed to meet me as my world twisted and faded down a thin passageway of darkness.


End file.
